Footloose Berka

Diana enrolled Elijah in a local dance class. She cleverly informed me of this on the day of, as I was walking out the door for work so I wouldn’t have enough time to slash her tires.

I pretended that the dance class was Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian fighting dance. Or at minimum the Kevin Bacon dance moves from “Footloose.” Because Kevin Bacon is all man.

But the reality is the dance class featured an aging hippie playing a mandolin. Her instructions were to dance or not. Pay attention or not. Stick around or not. Smash each other in the head or not. The kids were free to express themselves any way they wanted. I certainly hope we paid a lot for this top-notch instruction.

According to Diana, Eli expressed himself by watching himself in the dance mirrors. He is his father’s son after all. She said he actually practiced wondering where mommy was. “Ah mama?” He’d say to his reflection while shrugging.

Later on, the hippie asked all the moms to corral their kids while she handed out drumsticks. Diana said this was the only part of the class where the kids had to do as instructed. Probably because they were all holding wooden weapons. We wouldn’t want it to turn into Capeoira, would we?

Diana said there was a woman wearing a berka off to the side who had an uncontrollable child. He ran around with the drumsticks swung them wildly. The hippie woman tried to get control of the crazy kid. Most likely by saying, “Oh, bummer man. Mellow”

Elijah dropped his weapons and approached the berka woman. He then crawled into her lap and gave her a hug. I’m not sure what her berka-religion says about getting hugged by a crazy-haired toddler wearing a robot t-shirt, but she was into it.

The hippie told Diana, “Your son has a lot of love to give.” He is his mother’s son, after all.